Saturday, 15 February 2014

'Tiffany Jenkins: Parthenon marbles should stay',

Sending the
Parthenon Marbles in the British Museum to the Acropolis Museum would
benefit it and its audiences, but there are good reasons to keep them
where they are now, and where have been for more than 200 years – as the
centrepiece of one of the greatest collections in the world. In
Greece, visitors can see one set of marbles near their original
location, where this set-up helps the visitor to imagine ancient Athens. In London, you see them in the context of multiple cultures and
world history, which helps us understand their significance. Walking
through the different galleries of the British Museum you can see how
the civilisations of Egypt and Assyria as well as Persia – the enemy of
ancient Athens – contributed to the great accomplishment of 5th BC
Athens. In turn, by looking at the similarities and differences between
the artefacts from different cultures in the galleries, it becomes
evident how this Greek art influenced sculpture from Turkey to India. It
is also obvious, here, just how great an impact the Greek culture had
on the Roman Empire.

This is also perfectly obvious from any book or website on the subject. You know, books, those things people used to go to to find things out and attempt to understand the world. But the Parthenon can only be understood in a future when all the extant bits are back in one place. The empty Duveen gallery can be used to tell a different story.

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About Me

British archaeologist living and working in Warsaw, Poland. Since the early 1990s (or even longer) a primary interest has been research on artefact hunting and collecting and the market in portable antiquities in the international context and their effect on the archaeological record.

Abbreviations used in this blog

"coiney" - a term I use for private collector of dug up ancient coins, particularly a member of the Moneta-L forum or the ACCG

"heap-of-artefacts-on-a-table-collecting" the term rather speaks for itself, an accumulation of loose artefacts with no attempt to link each item with documented origins. Most often used to refer to metal detectorists (ice-cream tubs-full) and ancient coin collectors (Roman coins sold in aggregated bulk lots)